Lexicon

At an exclusive school somewhere outside of Arlington, Virginia, students aren’t taught history, geography, or mathematics—they are taught to persuade. Students learn to use language to manipulate minds, wielding words as weapons. The very best graduate as (3z(Bpoets,(3y (Band enter a nameless organization of unknown purpose. Whip-smart runaway Emily Ruff is making a living from three-card Monte on the streets of San Francisco when she attracts the attention of the organization’s recruiters. Drawn in to their strage world, which is populated by people named Brontë and Eliot, she learns their key rule: That every person can be classified by personality type, his mind segmented and ultimately unlocked by the skilful application of words. For this reason, she must never allow another person to truly know her, lest she herself be coerced. Adapting quickly, Emily becomes the school’s most talented prodigy, until she makes a catastrophic mistake: She falls in love. Meanwhile, a seemingly innocent man named Wil Parke is brutally ambushed by two men in an airport bathroom. They claim he is the key to a secret war he knows nothing about, that he is an (3z(Boutlier,(3y (Bimmune to segmentation. Attempting to stay one step ahead of the organization and its mind-bending poets, Wil and his captors seek salvation in the toxically decimated town of Broken Hill, Australia, which, if ancient stories are true, sits above an ancient glyph of frightening power.

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No one warned me about the aging process, but it sure beats the alternative. For instance when I was a child my injuries healed. Today I am forced to quit sports I believed I couldn't survive without. First it was soccer, then running and finally I could not even do yoga. So on the wrong side of 40, walking the dogs and listening to audio books is all I have left. And for the first time in years it took me months to finish a paperback instead of days. This piece was probably five stars but I don't really remember it all. Now, no one had to tell me my memory would go. My face and mind were melted permanently by the time I saw the Glass Spider Tour at Kemper Arena. I was definitely showing signs of early onset alzheimer's by the time I stumbled into Irvine Meadows on August 1, 1992. But I'm still walking so I'm sure that I can dance, and read.

An exceptional novel, clever from start to finish. I found the plot continuing to evolve, with enough mystery to keep me enthralled throughout. The early chapters slowly lead to more complex details, and there are twists and dark forces which begin to appear. Unique storyline and far more than I expected when I picked up the book.

I was pleased that I got more than I bargained for after reading the description. It was much more than a girl with strange powers goes to a special school. That was only a small part of the story. It took a long while to start piecing together the two story lines (an Aha! moment). It was exciting to have the "magical" power be words and knowledge. It has battles, love, schooling, betrayal, world dominion - something for everyone. Recommended for older teens and adults who enjoy sci-fi/ fantasy fiction.

WAY more intense then I had anticipated! Creative story telling, but at times I was lost as to the sequence of events. By the end it was easy to figure out, but there were a couple of rough part towards the end.

I was perilously close to putting this one down while reading the relatively generic thriller/kidnapping fare of the first chapter but now I'm glad I kept plowing on, the second narrative arc about the recruitment of a teenaged runaway really drew me in, though the temporal bounce-around throughout might be aggravating for some. Lastly, the epilogue was most unfortunate, but on the whole, a worthwhile read by a talented young author.

Max Barry has done it again with a rip-roaring sci-fi tale of love, language, control, freedom, paranoia, thought, and violence in his latest novel Lexicon.

Lexicon is a brilliant work, fast paced and full of interestingly broken characters. Barry's insights into freedom and information and vocabulary are intriguing and the various shifts in time make things interesting to follow. But the ride is well worth it. Highly recommended

Were I 20 years younger I would have read this and then immediately rushed to grab books on Peirce's semiotics, Searle's speech-act theory, and Wittgenstein's philosophy of language to produce a conference paper titled something like "Locution, Linguistics, and Lexicon: Words and Gender Power Dynamics in Max Barry's Fiction." But I'm not a graduate student anymore so I can read books for pleasure now! And, boy, did I enjoy this book. It's as if Barry is one of the "poets" from the novel and he has learned the exact combination of words and narrative elements to cause all of my critical defenses to fall. The central premise is that words are not simply signs for communication; they are containers of meaning that have a neurological effect on people's brains. Gifted and specially-trained individuals - "poets" - learn to size people up psychologically and then utter the specific "words" that cause an individual to drop all defenses and become utterly persuadable. Great power can be derived from this ability, and power corrupts.... The story unfolds in a dual-narrative fashion - one thread follows Wil and Tom as they are chased by an unknown organization bent on destroying Wil (free will?) because of his peculiar immunity to the poets' powers. The second follows a 16-year-old runaway girl named Emily who is recruited and sent to a special school to train to become a poet (shades of "Harry Potter" and Lev Grossman). Of course, the two threads intertwine and collide, and this is handled in a very clever and satisfying way. My only complaints are minor. I would have liked to have learned more about the character of Yeats, especially his belief in god and love of shoes (which may be related in some way I'm unclear on). The dialogue between Wil and Tom ran on a little at times and got somewhat annoying. Finally, I think the ending "cheated" a bit, though nothing too egregious. Overall, I was quite taken by this book, but that may have something to do with my predilection for the underlying premise and themes of linguistic power. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it - especially for the highly verbal among us.

Summary

This story starts with a bang! Wil Jamieson is grabbed by two guys in an airport bathroom. They stick a needle in his eye, ask him a bunch of questions and tell him if he wants to live he has to come with them. Wil gathers from their conversation that he in an important piece in a war they are fighting. Wars have casualties, and before they escape the airport one kidnapper and Wil's girlfriend are dead. Barely trusting Eliot, Wil takes off cross country as a fugitive, trying to discover what makes him so special.

Years earlier in San Francisco, Emily is a resourceful teen, living of her skills as monte dealer. Emily uses her skills of persuasion to push her marks to get in the game, and raise the stakes. When she is offered her a chance at a prestigious school on the east coast to learn a much more deadly form of persuasion she jumps at the chance.

The School teaches Emily an craft based on ancient languages and brain anatomy. Like computers our brains run on an operating system, and like computers the wrong line of code and crack it open. At The School, Emily learns the words and sounds that can hack our heads, and leave us vulnerable to persuasion. But with great power comes great responsibility and when a Bare Word is released in Australia it kills nearly 3,000 people, and Emily is held accountable.